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Diversity and Beyond: It is Not about Color, Nationality or Gender Anymore

Last night, Professor Jasso said, “Diversity is being invited to dance.” It is a very interesting analogy to remind us that we are already living in a diversified world, and minority groups are not “wallflowers” anymore. So, it raised other topics that are worth digging up, including a new definition of diversity groups and the impact it makes on pubic relations, particularly its workforce.

Professor Jasso brought up the topic of diversity when he was elaborating about stakeholders in an organization, including employees, suppliers, customers, government, investors, local community and special interest groups.

Even though stakeholders are differentiated by their roles, it is not that simple. Today we need to further diversity this category beyond even colors, nationalities or genders. Thus, PR practitioners who work on internal and external communications must be very mindful that all the stakeholders are treated with approaches, messages or languages simply based on their objective characters. In this new diversified world, it’s far more challenging to define diversity.

Objective characters, like color, nationality and gender, are only the starting point; the subjective characters are more critical. Professor Jasso introduced a new term, “psychographics,” which is a method to define interests, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of each stakeholder. This term is quite intriguing to me since this is way beyond the stereotypical way of distinguishing diversified stakeholders. For instance, take employee group, the most important stakeholders in an organization. Like Professor Jasso said:

They are the “front line” representing the organization

They have great credibility with outsiders

They will respond with loyalty when the organization makes them feel valued

Ultimately, I believed that employee loyalty is one of the most precious properties of the organization.

Unfortunately, from my observation in PR, many companies just hire minority groups to represent their diversity cultures, which are still focusing on color, nationality, or gender. That will lead to a negative effect that some with minority backgrounds will not be hired because of their personal abilities, professional skills, or values that they can bring to the organization.

The real value of minority groups, in my opinion, is that they can bring fresh perspectives and insights to this industry and their companies, and that will help companies develop sustainably in this diversified world. It is time to look beyond and look for a new diversified culture. The new definition of diversity will not just help PR practitioners to prioritize target audiences and create messages/languages for them, but also promote the cultivation of innovative talent. We, as one of the minority groups, expect to be hired because of our internal motivation of career pursuit, an intelligence of interpersonal communications, skills of relationship handling and problem-solving, and multicultural perspectives. It also echoes Professor Stein’s encouraging words in her class that, if you have a plan just go for it, regardless of where you are from.